In order to offer customers a wide selection of items readily available for delivery, a merchant (whether engaging in electronic or conventional “brick and mortar” commerce) may hold various quantities of such items within one or more inventory facilities. Keeping items in inventory may serve to buffer variations in customer demand, or in a manufacturer or distributor's ability to supply various items. For example, different items offered for sale by the merchant may have different manufacturer or vendor lead times. Holding quantities of such items in inventory may enable the merchant to offer a more consistent availability of these items to customers.
As part of its operations, a merchant will generally attempt to ensure that its inventory on hand is sufficient to cover expected customer order volumes for a particular period of time. Typically, these techniques focus on making sure that there is enough inventory on hand to meet projected demand. However, storing inventory is not without expenses. For example, providing and maintaining a physical facility in which to store the inventory presents recurring infrastructure costs directly attributable to the inventory items stored in the facility. Further, while items are in storage awaiting sale, debt or capital costs associated with the items may accumulate. Items being held in inventory may also depreciate, become obsolete, expire or spoil (e.g., in the case of perishable items), become damaged, etc.
When these various types of inventory holding costs are taken into account, storing too much inventory can present financial concerns. To address these concerns, merchants may employ optimization strategies for inventory management and replenishment planning. Such strategies may attempt to ensure that the merchant purchases and stocks just the right amount of inventory at the right time to satisfy demand, thus minimizing associated costs. These optimization strategies may include ordering smaller replenishment quantities at more frequent intervals in order to minimize inventory-holding costs.
However, merchants attempting to benefit from utilizing more frequent replenishment intervals may face various constraints imposed by the merchants' vendors. For example, a particular vendor may process received orders for an inventory item only at certain specific times (e.g., every Monday and Wednesday at 10 AM), thereby defining the maximum frequency at which the merchant may effectively place replenishment orders. Thus, it may be beneficial to account for vendor-imposed constraints in order to more accurately capture possible replenishment frequencies and planning intervals. Additional challenges may be encountered in cases where a vendor my occasionally change the constraints (e.g., the vendor changes the order processing frequencies and/or times).
Specific embodiments are shown by way of example in the drawings and will be described herein in detail. It should be understood, however, that the drawings and detailed description are not intended to limit the claims to the particular embodiments disclosed, even where only a single embodiment is described with respect to a particular feature. On the contrary, the intent is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims. Examples of features provided in the disclosure are intended to be illustrative rather than restrictive unless stated otherwise.
The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). The words “include,” “including,” and “includes” indicate open-ended relationships and therefore mean including, but not limited to. Similarly, the words “have,” “having,” and “has” also indicate open-ended relationships, and thus mean having, but not limited to. The terms “first,” “second,” “third,” and so forth as used herein are used as labels for nouns that they precede, and do not imply any type of ordering (e.g., spatial, temporal, logical, etc.) unless such an ordering is otherwise explicitly indicated.
Various components may be described as “configured to” perform a task or tasks. In such contexts, “configured to” is a broad recitation generally meaning “having structure that” performs the task or tasks during operation. As such, the component can be configured to perform the task even when the component is not currently performing that task (e.g., a computer system may be configured to perform operations even when the operations are not currently being performed). In some contexts, “configured to” may be a broad recitation of structure generally meaning “having circuitry that” performs the task or tasks during operation. As such, the component can be configured to perform the task even when the component is not currently on. In general, the circuitry that forms the structure corresponding to “configured to” may include hardware circuits.
Various components may be described as performing a task or tasks, for convenience in the description. Such descriptions should be interpreted as including the phrase “configured to.” Reciting a component that is configured to perform one or more tasks is expressly intended not to invoke 35 U.S.C. §112, paragraph six, interpretation for that component.
The scope of the present disclosure includes any feature or combination of features disclosed herein (either explicitly or implicitly), or any generalization thereof, whether or not it mitigates any or all of the problems addressed herein. Accordingly, new claims may be formulated during prosecution of this application (or an application claiming priority thereto) to any such combination of features. In particular, with reference to the appended claims, features from dependent claims may be combined with those of the independent claims and features from respective independent claims may be combined in any appropriate manner and not merely in the specific combinations enumerated in the appended claims.